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CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 
Paper 4 23/01/09 

CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 


FOR INFORMATION 


Title: Corporate Plan Monitoring 

Prepared by: David Cameron, Head of Corporate Services 

Purpose 

To present the results of the second update on progress against 
organisational objectives on the basis of the revised corporate plan 
monitoring framework. 

Recommendations 

The Board is asked to note the report, and to raise any questions on the 
update provided. 

Executive Summary 

The Board received a paper setting out the revised Corporate Plan 
monitoring framework at its meeting in September. This paper presents the 
results of the second update on progress against organisational objectives on 
the basis of this framework. 

The latest update of performance against corporate objectives is presented 
at Annex 1 to this paper. Annex 1 sets out each of the 46 achievements 
agreed in the Corporate Plan, together with the associated milestone, where 
applicable, which gives a sense of progress intended by the end of this 
financial and operational plan year, at 31 March 2009. A commentary on 
current performance is also presented. 

No individual achievements are highlighted for specific note by the Board at 
this relatively early stage in the process of securing Corporate Plan 
achievements by March 2011. While a number of the “milestone” targets set 
for achievement by March 2009 are assessed as having varying degrees of 
risk associated with their delivery, at this stage officers believe there is 
sufficient time to recover the situation on order to deliver the three-year 
corporate plan achievements by 2011. 


The Authority’s balanced scorecard monitoring tool is presented at Annex 2 
to this paper. This now incorporates KPIs measuring progress on the 
Authority’s contribution, through its Corporate Plan achievements, to the 
Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework. These KPIs and 
associated monitoring framework have only recently been adopted, and 
some work remains to complete baseline assessments and evaluate current 
positions for indicators. Therefore, some of the KPIs do not yet have 
performance assessments at this point. Future presentations will provide a 
fuller update on measured progress against the KPIs. 

The balanced scorecard continues to show internal performance measures in 
addition to the delivery oriented KPIs. Key exceptions highlighted by the 
balanced scorecard monitoring are set out below. 

The level of Operational Plan expenditure continues to be flagged as at 
variance from budget expectation. Unusually, however, expenditure is 
slightly ahead of budget, whereas in past years expenditure has been 
significantly below budget expectations at this stage of the year. Budgets 
are now based on reforecast figures following a detailed review of delivery 
patterns over the first half of the year. At this point, there is every expectation 
that expenditure will be brought back in line with budgets by the end of the 
year, as has been successfully achieved in previous years, and the outturn 
forecast therefore remains in line with budget. 

One instance of a Freedom of Information response being supplied after the 
required 20 working day turnaround has been recorded in the 12 months to 
November. This related to a particularly extensive information request which 
required the Authority’s officers to seek approval for release of information 
from a number of partner organisations. Review of the position does not 
suggest any underlying issues in the Authority’s systems or processes for 
dealing with Freedom of Information requests. 

Recent staff turnover has resulted in this indicator being highlighted as red, 
with 14.6% of posts experiencing staffing change in the last 12 month period. 
This carries with it a consequent disruption to service provision, together with 
some resource requirements to support new recruitment. 

Overall, the great majority of balanced scorecard indicators are “green”, 
highlighting that performance generally remains as planned. 

DAVID CAMERON 
14 January 2009 

davidcameron@cairngorms.co.uk